Board of Aldermen 12-28-2021 Page 8
Francis Murphy
72 Berkeley Street, thank you. I'm here speaking in my private capacity but I'm also the President of the Friends of
Greeley Park as well as Chairman of a group formed under State law - the Lower Merrimack River Local Advisory
Committee. Our task is to advocate for all good things related to the river. It's been referenced to the Master Plan. My
main purpose and point is to state that the purchase of the Bartlett Street property is entirely consistent with the city's
Master Plan. Indeed if the city were not to move forward with the purchase of the property, (inaudible) contrary to the
spirit and dictates of the Master Plan. I'm going to attempt to pull up portion of the Master Plan on a screen share. So
that's not working. I'm going to read from the Master Plan. On objective 2, the Master Plan states, “the goal is for open
space, scenic areas, passive recreation, the city should strive to provide all residents of the city with adequate and
accessible recreational space”. The specific recommendation b says, “is to protect and set aside open space areas in
each of the city's quadrants wherever possible”. Aspiration recommendation F is, “acquire additional open space areas”.
Then finally, for my point, recommendation G is, “to amend site plans, such that clear cutting or near clear cutting of
vegetation should be prohibited”.
The plan that was put forward was to create 40 housing units over 55.
Donna Graham, Legislative Affairs Manager
30 seconds.
Francis Murphy
That would have been involving clear cutting most of the 13 acres. So | urge the purchase of the property as it is entirely
consistent with the Master Plan. Thank you.
Laurie Ortolano
Hi. Good evening. Laurie Ortolano, 41 Berkeley Street. Happy almost New Year. | wanted to give my support to the
affordable housing inclusionary zoning amendment. | believe the Board is going to back that tonight. | think that's a move
in the right direction. | hope we do some good monitoring of that program and if adjustments need to be made to it that
we move accordingly to make those adjustments.
I'd also like to speak regarding the Bartlett Street property. | think there was some good points raised from individuals
John Sullivan and another individual reading the housing issue and the housing shortage. | do think that, you know,
you're looking at creating housing versus preservation of land and it's a competing issue here. | see a lot of spending
going on in the city. | see a Mayor who's very liberal (inaudible) in spending and | don't see a lot of solutions in place as to
how we're going to afford what is being spent. So that concerns me, it continues to concern me. So the Board is going to
do what the Board is going to do but I'm, you know, I'm watching what's going on here.
Also a third item you have a lot of letters in your packet regarding the mask mandate that was put in place. | asked Donna
Graham to please provide me with any additional letters that didn't make it into the packet. Your packet had, | believe 29
letters, but there were additional 33 letters that didn't go in because they were not addressed properly with a full address
to be counted. | think when you look at - | hope all Board members got all of those letters because when you look at
those letters, | was pretty surprised to see the lack of support for the mask mandate on the level that | saw.
President Wilshire
We're not going to be acting upon that this evening Ms. Ortolano. Could you stick to items we're going to be acting upon?
Laurie Ortolano
Well they are the items you read into the record and you allowed me to do this before. So they were acknowledged. So
there were 42 people who were opposed to it and 21 people in support the mandate. So | hope that one individual or
several individuals on the Board asked for a weekly update on the numbers and a weekly briefing be given to the Board. |
don't see that that's on the agenda tonight but | would like you to pay attention to that because | think you don't have that
support because people are not buying into what you're stating. | think your Board of Health was very misleading in what
they gave to the Board.
